The store had the kind of windows where you can see out but not see in, which made it look a lot like Darth Vader. She pushed open the door. A buzzer sounded. The place was filled with fancy binoculars and telescopes, cameras with long lenses, tape recorders, and electronic equipment she didn’t recognize. A skinny guy behind the counter wore a T-shirt that advertised some long-completed 10 K run. He looked surprised to see her. Probably didn’t get many women in here who didn’t wear fatigues or camo cargo pants and Doc Martens.
“Uh . . . can I help you?”
“I’m looking for pepper spray.” God, she hated that her voice sounded small.
The guy, who was only marginally creepy looking, gave her a big grin. “Sure.” He rummaged around in a drawer behind the counter. “You know this is serious stuff.”
“Good. I’ll feel safer just knowing I have it.”
He drew out several tiny spray cans. “I recommend the ‘Halt’ brand myself.”
“That’ll be fine.”
“Pepper spray is no substitute for a weapon, of course.”
This guy sounded like Galen. But he wouldn’t be able to even hold up the sword Galen swung to such deadly effect on the battlefield. “I have a gun.”
The guy gave her a patronizing smile. “Twenty-two pistol?”
“Glock nine millimeter.” She enjoyed the look on his face, but it only lasted a second.
“So, why do you need pepper spray?”
“I . . . I don’t feel comfortable using a gun when pepper spray would do the job.”
“Well . . . I can see how you wouldn’t feel comfortable with a Glock.” He didn’t think she could handle a gun like that. That made her mad. But there was nothing she could say. She’d already told him she wasn’t comfortable with it. “You ought to put in some time at a range.”
“I just might do that.” Like hell she would.
“You live around here? I could take you over to Home on the Range for a little practice.”
Uh-oh. A come-on. “How much is the spray?”
“Thirty-five. Sorry. The good stuff is hard to get these days.”
“No problem.” She laid two twenties on the counter and wandered away to the bookshelves in the back to avoid further conversation. Like he was going to be deterred.
“Take a look around,” he called. “We got all the standards. The Anarchist Cookbook, Revenge Unlimited. Mostly stuff about how to use the system against itself.”
Lucy scanned the shelves. “Isn’t that Cookbook one about how to make bombs?”
“No big deal. Everybody knows how to do it these days.”
That was a comforting thought. Wait. Lucy spied a big orange book about three inches thick, right next to a book about emergency war surgery. Medical Surgical Nursing. Now this might be useful. She pulled it down. It was some kind of textbook. She flipped to the index. W. Wounds. Dressings, debriding infection, stitches, removal of—She flipped to page 360 and scanned. Yup. Just what she needed. She turned back to the counter. “Can I get this, too?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Sure. That’s sixty bucks.”
“Sounds about right.”
He rang it up. She waved away a bag, gave him a salute, and ducked out to the Chevy.
Chapter 9
The sky behind her in the west had grown dark and threatening. They were in for some rain. This whole thing had taken longer than Lucy thought. Galen had been alone for hours. What if he overdosed on Vicodin or something? She pushed her speed up to seventy all the way to the turnoff from Highway 37. Past the Quik Stop, she took the dirt road at more like twenty but still faster than was probably safe and parked in the gravel lot. She gathered an armload of bags and let herself in through the gate. Down at the other end of the dock from the Camelot, a very suntanned, older, sailor-looking guy worked on his boat. He looked up but didn’t greet her. Just as well. She and Galen weren’t supposed to fraternize. A kid maybe sixteen came up on deck from a boat about halfway down, followed by a huge black wolf-looking dog. Who kept a dog that big on a boat? She hurried past as they played tug with a piece of old rope.
At slip eighteen she stepped aboard and climbed down into the cockpit. The hatch to below decks wasn’t locked. Had she forgotten to lock it? She groped for the ladder juggling her bags. No sound of the television. At least Galen had learned to use the remote. Unless he just threw the television against the wall when he got annoyed with it.
At the bottom of the ladder one very naked Viking brandished the very naked blade of Jake’s sword in one hand and a carving knife in the other. She gasped and froze. Where was her pepper spray? Somewhere in the bags . . . But his glower turned to obvious relief.
“You return,” he said in Latin, laying the knife on the table.
She breathed again. For a minute there . . . “Well, yeah,” she muttered, trying to still her thumping heart while she stacked her bags on the table. Maybe the mattress wasn’t an entirely original hiding place for the sword. Now it looked glued to his hand. Not a chance she’d be able to pry it away. She glanced at the sling, its buckle torn from the strap, lying on the floor. “Why are you not in bed?” she managed in Latin.
“A man came here.” Galen sat on the sofa.
She turned on him. Oh, this was bad. “What man?”
“A small, soft man.”
Well, that let out the sailor she’d seen working on his boat and even the kid. And you couldn’t say either Brad or Casey was small or soft. “Did . . . did he attack you?”
“No. I think he wanted to be a friend.”
“Did you attack him?” She nodded to the sword, imagining fountains of blood, a body hacked to pieces and thrown overboard.
Galen looked affronted. “I did not attack him.”
“Well, what . . . what came to pass?” Boy, this Latin thing was sure getting annoying.
Galen lifted his chin. “He grew frightened and left.”
That sword would frighten anyone off. As a matter of fact, Galen, seen through a stranger’s eyes, was pretty fearsome with his naked, muscled frame, his wild hair, his barbarian braids, and his beard. Who could it have been?
“He had a cart also, but with more dirt than yours.”
A car. Someone not from the marina then . . . It was the nosey man from the convenience store Jake had warned her about, dollars to doughnuts. Galen would cause talk, and she didn’t want the man spreading stories of wounded Vikings from here to next Sunday.
“Okay, okay.” She had to do something about this. First things first. Get the rest of the bags in from the car, give Galen something to eat. She needed to think anyway. “I will return.”
She carried in two more armloads of supplies while she thought. The man at the convenience store would tell everyone who came in and they’d tell someone, who’d tell someone, and pretty soon . . . Well she didn’t want to think what would happen if the police heard about Galen. Brad and Casey had to have the word out. Okay. Okay. Just stay calm. This was bound to happen sooner or later. First see the man from the convenience store. Make up some story to keep him from gossiping. And what would that be?
Galen watched her rummage through the bags. She pulled out the three-pack of boxer shorts, one in black-watch plaid, one plain navy blue, and one hunter green. She tossed him the plaid. They hit him in the belly and slid to the floor, since he was still hanging on to that sword for dear life. “For you. Put down your sword.” She said it in English without thinking and was amazed to see that he understood. He laid his sword down and painstakingly reached for the boxers. Fierce as he looked with a sword in his hand, he was still injured. It had been less than forty-eight hours since he’d had surgery on his shoulder. He should be flat on his back. That he was not spoke to the fact that he came from an age where weakness was rewarded with death.